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The drop in funding could mean layoffs in the Office of Public Health, which employs restaurant inspectors who make sure businesses follow state health laws. Fewer employees would mean fewer health inspections at restaurants across the state.

In a city known for its food, fewer health inspections at restaurants is not a welcome idea.

"That makes me feel unsafe, like I'm eating and drinking things that are unsafe," said Kelley Conway, a tourist from Michigan.

Restaurant inspections typically happen quarterly. Parkway Bakery and Tavern had an inspector drop by during lunch on Monday.

"The Board of Health keeps you intact and they check and catch some things that you might not be able to catch when you're busy," manager Michael Lena said. "We take pride in all our inspections. We want them to come, we ask them to come see us because it's another set of eyes that watch everything."

Proposed budget cuts could make those visits few and far between. Currently, there are 89,000 restaurant inspections done in the state each year, and that could be knocked down to 26,000 a year. The Office of Public Health has 147 sanitarians who inspect restaurants, and layoffs could cut that number down to 99.

"There is an expectation from the public that the restaurants they visit will be clean and well-regulated. We cannot meet that expectation unless we have adequate resources and staffing to conduct restaurant inspections," DHH spokeswoman Samantha R. Faulkner said.

Lena worries that the proposed cuts would reflect badly on the restaurant industry.

"As a person who goes out to restaurants you want to feel safe, and if somebody's not checking on the quality of stuff going out that could be really dangerous," Lena said.

However, Shelley Waguespack, the owner of Pat O'Brien's, doesn't think a cutback on inspections would mean a cutback in the number of people eating in local restaurants.

"Nobody is going to walk in a restaurant and want to see the health inspection and ... base their reason on whether they're going to eat at that restaurant or not. Social media takes care of all of that. People are instant critics," Waguespack said.

DHH officials said that during any year, there are about 15 people hospitalized and one to five deaths related to food-borne illnesses in the state. They worry that with fewer inspections, those numbers could triple.

"These cuts pose a serious threat by slashing the number of inspections that DHH is able to perform by almost two-thirds. Not only would this increase waiting times for routine inspections, but it would also reduce our ability to conduct follow-up inspections when there has been a violation. This poses a potentially serious threat to public health," Faulkner said.

DHH is also looking at a $4 million cut to the Office of Behavioral Health. Officials said that would reduce the availability of beds needed to treat patients referred by the court system. It would also mean layoffs, including a person who investigates fraud and abuse, as well as an investigator who looks into charges of abuse of adults in health care programs.